How good it is to be able to focus upon work again. There’s nothing like burying oneself in computer rooms and board rooms to keep one’s mind off of personal matters. Most people would probably find the idea of poring over pages and pages of computer code – or, for that matter, profit-and-loss statements and manufacturing and sales projections – profoundly boring. But when life outside those areas is as schizophrenic as mine has been, even the most mundane of professional tasks takes on a beauty of its own, if only by virtue of its predictability and order.
Carter is happy and healthy, and although he has to spend a lot of time with his nanny, he enjoys being around her and her family. Perhaps he gets the same satisfaction from that environment that I get from my work – a calm oasis compared to the stormy life he has experienced thus far in his young life. His nanny is from El Salvador, ensuring that Carter will be one of the lucky kids who grow up bilingual, rather than having to struggle with foreign language lessons later on in his schooling.
We do get to spend long weekends together at the ranch now that Clyde, busted again, is safely tucked away in jail, and Lucille is forbidden from entering Robertson County under threat of being arrested as an accomplice to Clyde’s criminal activities. While law enforcement never had enough evidence to charge her with a crime, they did know how deeply involved she was in Clyde’s meth manufacturing operation.
Even though her medical license has been suspended, she had an ingenious method for acquiring the drugs they needed to keep their little factory going. She put on her lab coat and Physician’s Assistant badge and wandered around the hospitals in the medical center, her leather briefcase tucked beneath her arm, looking like any of hundreds of other professionals who were actually supposed to be there. After her day of illicit shopping, she returned to her town home with several grocery bags filled with ephedrine tablets, untraceable and – even better – free.
While I work hard and, time permitting, play hard with Carter, Lucille seems to be progressively losing her grip on reality. She claims that the 2.2 carat diamond engagement ring that I had bought her is missing. She had testified in an earlier court hearing that she had put the ring in my gun safe at the ranch, and that my father and I subsequently stole it. That might sound like a plausible story, except for the fact only my father and I have keys to the gun safe, so she could not have gotten into the safe to place the ring there to begin with. I learn from my homeowners’ insurance agent that she has contacted him and has begun the process of filing a claim for the ring. Around the same time, she rear-ends a car on the freeway with her Lexus SUV. Ultimately, she receives a check from the car insurance company for $4,000, but instead of repairing the car, she forges Toyota Motor Credit Corporation’s name on the check and cashes it.
Of course, the car insurance company will not pursue charges against her for such a small amount. They decide that their best course of action is to just cancel the insurance policy – my insurance policy – leaving me high and dry after maintaining the policy with them in good standing for twenty years. Figuring she would try to pull the same kind of stunt with the supposedly stolen ring, I contact my homeowners’ insurance agency and tell them what is going on. They tell me that if a claim is actually filed for the ring, they will certainly conduct a thorough investigation.
Perhaps Lucille gets wind of this, or maybe she finds out from one of her friends that when the stakes are that high, insurance companies look long and hard at everyone involved before writing such a large check, and they aggressively prosecute people who try to scam them. As it turns out, and much to my surprise, a formal claim is never made on the ring.
This could be an indication that perhaps Lucille has begun to develop a rudimentary degree of common sense, or even integrity. That would be the most logical conclusion if we were talking about a reasonably sensible human being. However, I know better, having learned through one painful lesson after another that Lucille has become a citizen in good standing of that place known as Crazy Town, where the only requirement for citizenship is an unwavering loyalty to the demands of Lord Meth. In that place, logic – and even survival – are merely vehicles used to transport the citizen to the next hit, and anything that stands in the way is to be avoided, discarded, or if need be, destroyed, until such time as the individual falls prey to his or her own demons. Sadly, it appears that nobody gets out of Crazy Town intact, and most don’t even get out alive. For myself, I have had to learn how to protect my son and me, lest we be drawn into that same downward spiral, and join Lucille in the land of illusion, fear, and ultimately, death. Carter deserves better than that, as do I. And once upon a time, so did Lucille.